9 Expert Hacks on How to Improve Email Deliverability
Did you know that the average expected return for every dollar you spend on email marketing is about $42? That’s right, even with the advent and growth of social media, email is still an effective marketing tool for businesses worldwide. That’s why smart businesses spend a pretty penny on email marketing to welcome new customers, increase customer engagement and crush the competition.
However, email marketing is more than just churning out as many emails to your customers as you can. One thing you need to do to have a solid email marketing strategy is to improve email deliverability.
In fact, according to Sendgrid, more than a fifth of emails sent never make it to customers’ mailboxes because of poor email deliverability. No, and we’re not talking about it ending up in spam; the emails don’t actually make it to the recipients. If your emails don’t reach their recipients, then what’s the point of sending them in the first place?
The only way to ensure all your emails reach their intended target audience is by adopting email deliverability best practices. Keep reading as we explore some incredible hacks for improving email deliverability.
What Is Email Deliverability?
Email deliverability is the rate of how many emails reach your subscribers, usually measured as a percentage. Email services like Google and Yahoo are continually tightening their restrictions to keep spam out of their users’ inboxes. The email services must verify whether the email comes from an original source and whether it’s legitimate.
The problem is that these days even legitimate emails get shown the stop sign. That’s because the email service providers may mistake even the most pure-intentioned email for spam. It’s not the service provider’s fault; it’s just that spam has become cleverer, which forces them to tighten their restrictions.
The only way to sidestep these restrictions is to improve your email deliverability, and here’s how you do it.
How to Improve Email Deliverability
Improving email deliverability can bolster your email marketing campaigns for better customer retention and profitability. To improve email deliverability, consider doing the following.
1. Start With the Stats
The first step to improving email deliverability is by keeping track of your email statistics. The best way to do so is by assessing the delivery reports sent to you by the email service providers periodically. The reports contain important figures that can help you determine your deliverability.
It’s only natural for you to focus on click rates and likes, which is good for measuring conversion. However, for email deliverability, you need to focus on complaints and bounce rates. High bounce rates are detrimental to your sender’s reputation, which means you’ll be easily mistaken for spam or worse, be blocked from sending your emails completely.
Complaints are when your subscriber’s flag down your email as spam. That means that to the subscriber, your emails are downright annoying. Keep track of these two parameters to get a rough idea of your email deliverability, and then you can get to the improving part.
2. Avoid Purchasing Bulk Email Lists
Most folks, especially new businesses, are guilty of buying email lists. Understandably, these email lists look like a great way to increase your emails’ reach without much of a hassle. However, doing so might not be such a good idea.
Remember, people on email lists don’t actually subscribe to your emails. This means it’s easy for them to flag down your emails as spam. As mentioned earlier, when subscribers mark your email as spam, the only thing it does is ruin your sender’s reputation, which decreases email deliverability.
What’s more, buying email lists may violate your email service provider’s terms of service. The service provider might terminate your email account in its entirety. Next time, think twice before you buy an email list; you may live to regret it.
3. Leave Preferences to the Recipients
A lot of people mark their emails as spam because they don’t know how to unsubscribe. The problem is that if they mark your emails as spam, the only thing it does is ruin your sender’s reputation. When this happens, it affects your email deliverability.
To avoid such ugly scenarios, let your subscribers manage their preferences. The best way to do so is by including a link to your email that lets subscribers do so. You can put this link in your email’s footer or manually to parts of your email.
Letting your subscribers manage their preferences is a better option than having them unsubscribe or mark your emails as spam. For instance, you can let them choose whether they prefer to get emails every day or weekly. You can even allow them to pause receiving your emails for a while and resume them when they want.
4. Focus on Your Most Engaged Users
Although you’d want an expansive subscribers list, it’s a good idea to focus on those who actually open and read your email. That way, you can increase your sender’s reputation, which is a considerable boost to your email deliverability.
That said, when crafting your email marketing strategies, make sure you have a list of the most engaged users that you’ll focus on. After that, you can segment your email list and prioritize your most receptive subscribers. You can’t underestimate the importance of segmentation for your email list, especially for your email deliverability.
5. Keep an Eye on Subscribers’ Origins
You need to ensure that the emails on your list belong to real people that actually open and read your emails. As we mentioned earlier, you should never buy email lists and be careful with email addresses from competitions and lotteries. No one will ever open emails sent to such addresses.
What’s more, apart from the email addresses being dubious, some might even be illegal. This can only hurt your sender’s reputation and decrease your email deliverability. If you want the best for your deliverability, make sure you’re extra keen on your subscribers’ email addresses.
6. Use Double Opt-ins
Using double opt-ins may seem counter-intuitive, but it works for the best of your email deliverability. While it’s true that you’ll lose some subscribers, it’s better than having your emails marked as spam. It also gives you the leeway to focus on your most engaged subscribers.
A double opt-in is when users subscribe to your mailing list, you have to send them a confirmation link. Only after they click the confirmation link to you add the subscriber to your list.
7. Know the Basics
Before getting down to the serious stuff, at least make sure you have the basics on lock. This involves doing stuff like polishing your subject lines, content, and other aspects of your email that you have complete control of. Make sure your emails reel in your subscribers and keep them hooked.
Better customer engagement equals a better sender’s reputation, which then increases your email deliverability. The first thing to have on lock is the subject line because it serves as your emails’ first impression to your subscribers. Make sure you have a catchy and personalized subject line to capture the subscriber’s attention.
Polishing the subject line is just part of the process. You can check out these other tips for crafting superior emails. Having the basics down pat will do wonders for your email deliverability.
8. Determine Your Sender’s reputation
We’ve talked a great deal about the sender’s reputation, but how do you determine it? Your sender’s reputation plays a crucial part in determining your email deliverability. If you have a low sender’s reputation, your emails won’t even make it to your subscribers’ invoices.
Several factors determine your sender’s reputation, and you don’t have control over all of them. However, you can work on those that you have control over to increase your sender’s reputation. So how do you know your sender’s reputation?
You’ll need a combination of different tools to know your sender’s reputation. The first one you’ll use is mail-tester, which provides you an email authentication report. Using the tool, find your email server’s IP address, then copy it.
Next, go to the Talos Intelligence reputation lookup tool and paste the IP address there. You should receive a report that contains details on your sender’s reputation, web reputation, and weighted reputation. If your sender’s reputation is “good,” you have nothing to worry about, and if it’s not, then you better start working on your email marketing strategy.
9. Keep Your Emails Consistent
You need to decide on a time and day that you’ll send your emails to your subscribers. Before you do so, you need to conduct conclusive research on the best time to do so. Make sure you stick to this time all through your email campaigns unless you find a better time.
Once you find the perfect time, stick to it. For example, always send your newsletters on Friday at 2 p.m.; if that’s the best time. That way, your subscribers can anticipate your emails and plan to open and read them.
Email Deliverability Is Everything
From the above, we hope you are now well-equipped to improve email deliverability for your business. Please note that it may take some time before you notice any significant changes in your email deliverability, so the earlier, the better.
Also, you can always go for some professional help to streamline your marketing strategy. If you’re down for some professional help, contact us today, and together we’ll see how we can refine your email marketing strategy.
